The hardest part of being a musician is finding your own voice,
or at least a way to express yourself. Fear not, aspiring indie
rockers, John Vanderslice is here to help.
Vanderslice is the owner of San Francisco’s Tiny Telephone
Studios as well as a critically acclaimed songwriter in his own
right. His tour to promote his new album, “Cellar
Door,” stops off at Bruin Plaza at noon on Wednesday. The
album melds folk and rock textures with an attention to detail that
reveals a painstaking sense of craft.
“The whole process (for one song) is maybe like six
months,” Vanderslice said. “We really let it build up
as organically as we can without any deadlines.”
A major part of this process is the freedom inherent in owning a
recording studio. Designed to Vanderslice’s exact
specifications, with gear he bought himself, Tiny Telephone is
practically a home studio. Unlike the private studios of other
groups, however, Tiny Telephone has produced such artists as the
Mountain Goats, Spoon and Travis Morrison of the now-defunct
Dismemberment Plan. Creating a comfortable atmosphere free of the
rigidity and “uptightness” of most studios is one of
Vanderslice’s priorities.
“The staff is pretty fawning towards the artist because I
kind of impose that on people,” Vanderslice said.
“There are definitely people who have been booted out for
being a little agro on bands,” he said.
Working with a “fleet of freelance engineers,” Tiny
Telephone gives bands an independent, relatively inexpensive
recording environment where the artist comes first. With minimal
artistic interference, the studio is not a factory for cranking out
generic pop hits or altering bands’ sounds.
Unfortunately, such a place is difficult to maintain.
“I was a waiter for a really long time,” Vanderslice
said. “I always had freelance engineers, so it allowed me to
work and support the studio.”
As the sole owner, the studio now produces enough income for
Vanderslice to live on, but at the potential cost of his own
artistic freedom. This independence often translates to a lack of
commercial success, so sharing the advantages of Tiny Telephone
with a larger musical community is necessary for the creation of
his own music.
“The problem is I book so much time in the studio for my
own music, and that really affects me (financially),”
Vanderslice said.
Still, Vanderslice finds a balance between the art and business
halves of music, already recording tracks for a new album during a
gap in touring. Even his work in the studio itself inspires his
songwriting; he so loves the process of recording that his previous
album, “Life and Death of an American Fourtracker,” was
a concept record featuring an ode to the title character’s
Tascam 424.
“I decided a long time ago that as long as the records are
different, I don’t really care if people like them or
not,” Vanderslice said. “I just want to be changing as
a songwriter.”
Vanderslice will perform at Bruin Plaza on Wednesday, Feb.
25. at noon.